


The Angel of Charity, or This Awfully Long Month

by PaulaMcG



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: 1978, Art, Artist Remus Lupin, Carnival Against the Nazis, Friendship, Homelessness, Kissing, London, Love, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Music, Oral Sex, Poverty, Pre-Sirius Black in Azkaban, The Two Het Ships in Very Minor Roles, University, Werewolf Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 07:47:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaulaMcG/pseuds/PaulaMcG
Summary: April 1978 makes it hard for Remus not to give up his pride while connecting with his lover, his other friends, and others.
Relationships: Alice Longbottom/Frank Longbottom, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Kudos: 10





	The Angel of Charity, or This Awfully Long Month

**Author's Note:**

> Remus and his friends will never help me make any money. This piece can stand on its own, but it also belongs to the same extensive story in my Rowling's-first-five-novels-compliant universe as the rest of my fanfiction.  
> My Marauders left Hogwarts in summer 1976, and my Remus does not have a Muggle or Muggle-born parent.

“Excuse me… Sir!” Desperate to get the clerk’s attention, I grip the edge of the marble counter and lean forward, trying to see behind it. “There’s a mistake here.”

He’s clambered down from his high stool and disappeared after handing out the monthly installment of my scholarship. Or rather a part of it! I’ve left the few coins on the counter, but I’m afraid he’ll accuse me of cheating. My pulse’s quickening, and as I glance up and around in the magnificent bank hall, it’s all swirling in my eyes. Nobody’s looking; there’s nobody who could prove I didn’t already take some of the money. I have no coin on me, but empty pockets are no proof, as I could have used my wand to hide… No, it’s not possible to conceal precious metal from goblins, in here not even by transfiguration. Still… “Sir!”

I lean over the counter, and there he is. He’s walking back, levitating a thick, open ledger just above the tips of his long fingers, with his pointed beard brushing the page as he’s bend his head to read.

Stopping right under me, he turns his face up and frowns. “Mind your manners!”

Just like my landlady, he’s got absolutely no difficulty in remaining haughty, even though I’m looking down at him. There’s no reason for him to regain his position up at the counter.

“Sir, excuse me, there’s a mistake.” I try to control my behaviour and stand straight, but I find it unnerving not to see if he’s still there. “You’ve given me barely half of the usual amount of...”

I can hear him snap his fingers, and a piece of parchment alights on the counter: the receipt he hasn’t bothered to present to me earlier. “No mistake. Tax.”

“What?” My throat’s contracting; the clerk’s been totally calm, not accusing, but my relief’s buried under mounting anguish.

There’s no answer. As I peek behind the counter, there’s no sign of him. There’s just this jargon on the parchment I try to focus on: _imposition of tax on Oxford scholarships … based on decree … Ministry … war effort … effective tax rate fifty-five percent … deduction…_ Right. No mistake.

I’m clutching the receipt and the coins inside my jacket pocket. Somehow I’ve stumbled down the stone steps. Numb, I look back at their whiteness, which glows in the gloom of the dull, cold day. I must have stopped to stare at the inner, silver doors, too, since in my mind I keep repeating a line of the engraving: _A treasure that was never yours._

A blast of wind carrying a shower of rain jerks me to move away. I’m dizzy, but I manage to head for and reach a bakery, as that’s where I’d decided to go with my money first.

Breathing in the enticing smell, I try to think – in vain. Still, having planned to buy more, I do manage an initial emergency measure: digging out one Knut, I just lift a finger and point at the rolls. 

As the windowpane is hammered by rain, it looks natural that a customer stays waiting for the shower to pass. Pretending to stare out, I close my eyes at times while revelling in the crispness of the crust, and the warmth of the softness inside – despite trying to eat my roll of bread as inconspicuously as possible. After finishing it, I’ll have the strength to Apparate all the way to Oxford, to my Magical College. There I’ll sit down and think, figure out what to do.

I succeed in arriving on the edge of Dead Man’s Walk and exactly where the stone wall forms the small semicircle. Here I’m invisible to any Muggles in Merton college, but still also not quite in sight of Merlin college’s porter’s lodge. While walking to the entrance I’ve got time to take off the corduroy jacket, try my best to make myself look decent.

The porter eyes me with suspicion only after checking my wand. “You’ve got limited access to the college buildings and facilities. And no classes today.”

“Yes. I mean no. I’m going only to the library – just to return a book.” Just to sit down for a while.

But some hooting from the owl-holes behind him catches my attention, makes me think, albeit not quite clearly yet. If I were entitled to the free postal services, I could send an owl to… Sirius, perhaps. Tell him I’ve got a new opportunity to contribute to the war effort. He’d reply that I’m April fool – two days late with my joke.

My rent’s these couple of days late. Forced to wait until the first bank day of the month, my lovely landlady’s been impatient, and she’ll be furious when I don’t get to her until evening. But I’m taking my time, deliberately slow in crossing the quadrangle despite the relentless rain. If only the spring had truly arrived, as the warm day weeks ago promised! I could just move… out.

Seated at a desk near a fireplace, I finally run some figures through my mind. And a Drying Charm on my drenched robes causes me to shiver just more fiercely. Forty-five percent means I’ll live on my scholarship for not quite two weeks – if I pay the rent, too, for only two weeks. It also means that in any case I couldn’t possibly pay the whole monthly rent now – unless I found some work today and got my wages immediately, too. Impossible. 

My previous contribution to the war effort has been one of the raised fines. The fine on misleading an employer to hire you when you’re not fully human. I’ll have to risk that more often now – but be ever more cautious. And the increasing unemployment in Muggle Britain... Just have to try harder and find something. But they can see I don’t belong to that world – like not here, either.

A passing pair of students glance at me, whisper and snigger. I get up to fetch a book from the nearest shelf, any book to open on my desk.

Now I can pretend to be reading. If the beastiologists really meant to hide the fact that this guinea-pig student is sub-human, so as to get some reliable results in their experiment, they could have secured equal rights – at least to the whole programme of Defence, not only to Dark Creature study. But I won’t relent. I want to believe… in miracles: in what he said – Sirius. I’ll learn and discover something beyond this misinformation they want to teach; I’ll show them there’s more to these creatures they call Dark. If only I had the right to – and could afford – lodgings here, or at least meals. 

I need to eat. Now. (My stomach’s been looking forward to this day, and it keeps pestering me.) And all through the month. No, I won’t surrender all my coin to Miss Gallywig. I’ll transfigure some of the money, so that she won’t sense the metal on me.

I need some delay tactics. I’ll say there’s a change in my scholarship payments. So that I can pay half now. Or one fourth? She won’t agree to that, so I’ll offer first that. Then perhaps we can settle on two weeks’ rent now. By mid-month I’ll come up with something.

Acting calm, I return the book to its shelf. On my way to the porter’s lodge and out, where I can Apparate... so as to have the strength for that again, I’ll pass by the dining hall to sneak a bite of some leftovers.

“Fourteenth, Friday. Rent.” Miss Gallywig’s garish fringe-extension is hanging just above my face, half covering my view of her bushy eyebrows and demanding stare.

For once she can look down at me. She hasn’t woken me up, though, despite invading my room like this at sunrise. My stomach’s beaten her, but with no prospect of breakfast, I’ve laid my weak body back down on the mattress.

I sigh but try to sound brisk. “Yes. I can go to Gringotts today.”

They’re closed tomorrow, and it’s true we agreed I’d pay the other half at the latest on the fifteenth. At least there’s no rain against my window like all day yesterday. Hopefully no more showers of snow to accompany me on my quest of work.

“Get going!” Her rings and curved nails flash in a slapdash movement of her fingers, and she’s levitating my blanket, at least turning her smirk away from me.

Having startled me at the front door, she frowns, crossing her arms, with her fingers hidden under the embroidered sleeves, which can help her refrain from aggressive magic. “You were supposed to get your payment now, on Monday, right?”

“Well… I hope I’ll have some money for you tomorrow.”

“You’d better have.” To my relief she lets me enter and start struggling up to the attic.

All right, this time she blocks the narrow staircase, standing a few steps above me. “Well?”

I open my fist. “This is all I have now.”

Today I’m finally quite honest, no longer hiding any transfigured coin. Perhaps because I’ve done my best to stretch the scholarship money for two whole weeks by hardly eating once a day, I haven’t managed to be very bright and innovative. Still no job. No new tactics. All I can do is sacrifice my last couple of Knuts – today’s food – to try and placate her to give me another day.

“Unless a new tenant turns up, I won’t bother to evict you – before tomorrow.” She snorts, looking at my open palm. “Ridiculous!” But she summons the Knuts to her purse in any case.

“I could pay you now,” I start as I’ve planned carefully, “and every day, by doing some work here – like cleaning the stairwell...”

Miss Gallywig raises her eyebrows, leaning against the door frame. “You’d work for me?”

“Yes, there’s work to do here,” I continue hopefully. “The bathroom, too… You know, I’m ready to do any work. I’ve looked for...”

“And why haven’t you got any? I know.” There’s condescension and triumph, too, in her unusually subdued voice. “I know what you are. I can’t let you work. It’s illegal.”

She turns and takes a step away, then stops to talk, with her back to me. “This weekend’s the time when you must stay away, right? After that there’s no coming back unless you bring the whole two weeks’ rent. But you can stay tonight and… yes, two more nights, if you do cleaning every day. You don’t look like you’re in shape for hard work, but we’ll see if you can still make that wand function.” 

All my limbs are intact. I draw a shuddering breath of relief. Perhaps it was foolhardy to take such a risk. But I’ve just Apparated to my college for a lecture and...

The porter hardly looks at me, because my wand matches the information of a student who’s got access on the basis of classes today. I’m even arriving approximately in time.

Rushing to the dining hall, I’m happy to be just a bit late for breakfast. The personnel can’t imagine that any beggars could be let in, and they’re polite enough to pretend not to notice what I do. Having snatched a few pieces of toast and several boiled eggs, I hurry to cross another quadrangle.

Fortunately this egg’s been boiled hard enough so that I manage to devour it on my way without making a mess. There was that chance for me to have a proper meal at a table. A few days ago, when I happened across Peter. Perhaps I should have… I could have taken it: I could have just grinned and asked directly if it would be his treat. How long will it take before I admit defeat – realise that I can’t afford pride in front of my friends? Perhaps it would have been better to at least tell him a lie… an honest lie, yes, which he could have recognised. Say that I had just eaten, or wasn’t hungry. But I was still crafty enough to say that no, I didn’t feel like going to a pub. Now maybe he thinks I don’t want his company. I do.

I want them so much. Sirius! But the others, too. I’m sitting alone in the back of this lecture hall, up. A bit early still, but even when the students start arriving, nobody comes near me – fortunately, I suppose, so I can covertly peel another egg after stuffing my mouth with toast. Why, when finally eating, I’m close to… yes, I’m in tears. I need Sirius now, and all of them, to be with them. I need to talk to them… No, I just miss talking to them. I still don’t admit I need to talk about this, or that I need their help. Better cry now, so perhaps I won’t when I see them.

Having tried to wipe my eyes, I’m licking my fingers – and about to take out the note Sirius’s owl brought last week – when a redheaded boy slides to my tier, leaving only one seat in between. I’ve spread eggshells on the table almost in front of him, too.

Quickly vanishing them with my wand, I try to smile to him. “Sorry!” And I manage to glance at him and see…

He smiles back. “Hurried breakfast?”

I nod. He’s not staring at me. He’s taking out a book and rolls of parchment, an inkwell and a quill.

I haven’t had the mind to bring anything for the lecture. In my pocket there’s only what I always carry with me: a letter from Sirius, the latest one. Oh, a stub of a charcoal pencil too.

Now I unfold the piece of paper I’ve already longed to look at earlier. It’s just a brief note. I know the text by heart and enjoy reading it with a glance.

_Too busy training here. No good pubs, no good music. Miss even your lute. Can’t wait for our furry time. Sure to be there for you. Until then take care. Sirius_

I touch his signature with a fingertip and turn the paper over. As I’m placing the pencil on it, the redhead talks.

“Sorry?” I’m doing well in conversation with a fellow student, am I not, considering the circumstances.

“The prof’s late.” He still seems… kind. Looks me in the eyes. Not at the frayed sleeves of my robes, or at my lap. “You can continue your breakfast if you haven’t finished.”

I’ve still got the last two eggs and some toast in my lap. Amazingly, there’s no shame. I lift the eggs and offer one to him.

“Ta, I’ve finished.” And while I’m peeling the eggs and eating them with the toast, he goes on talking: tells me he wasn’t here last week, asks me if I was, and I can just shake my head and continue to listen when he describes what he finds stupid about these Pogrepin lectures.

“Just all these tips: how to hex or simply kick the Pogrepins. But you can’t do it on your own if they’ve paralysed you with hopelessness...”

No, you need to sit and talk and eat with someone. “We should get to practise how to fight it together,” I manage to say, swallowing the last morsel. “The hopelessness.”

Now the professor strides in with his robes swirling, and booms, “Let’s revise the tips: how to kick a Pogrepin!” and we share a wink.

I grab the pencil stub, prepared for the drowsiness that always follows my relatively heavy eating. Taking notes can help me stay awake, and I should really get some studying done, too.

But perhaps due to the redhead’s talk, the lecture sounds inane. When I look his way, he points at a page in his book and whispers, “It’s all straight from here. A silly book, too.”

I sigh. Inane studies, inane ambition for a career – are these really worth staying in London and Oxford, staying in Britain and in this hopeless situation? My caricature of a career...

Surprising myself with a quiet chortle, I smooth the paper, move the charcoal to my left hand, and, instead of writing, begin to sketch a face. First mine: dark circles around the eyes, an exaggerated hollow cheek, and the shape of a whole egg inside the other one. Next time I catch the boy’s eye, I show the picture to him, then point at him and at the paper. “May I?” I rather mouth than whisper.

He nods eagerly, then leans over to watch me draw. Glancing at him, I look for features to portray in a hilarious way. And I find him perfectly beautiful despite his freckles and long nose – as alarmingly as if I were falling in love. No, it’s just that I’ve connected with him, and I’m thrilled to have the chance to record something of the life I’ve almost reached to touch in him. I spread the warmth of his smile to cover half his face, and quickly draw his robes, too, and a foot sticking out to kick the Pointless Book of Pogrebins.

“Wow!” He hardly manages to keep his voice down. “You’re so talented!”

I lean back, ridiculously pleased about the praise. “Thanks.”

He reaches to touch the paper. “Can I have this?”

Now I’m taken aback. I’d have liked to keep the memory of him as a portrait. Besides… My fingers brush his as I flip a corner, peeking at the letter.

“You’d like to keep that note. But I really want the drawing. Let me buy it from you!” He withdraws his hand, puts it in his pocket. “Oh, sorry, I guess I can’t. Got only a few Knuts on me.”

I look at the letter once more. In the seriously sloppy handwriting, _furry_ could as well read _funny_. There’s nothing a stranger shouldn’t see. And I don’t mind if this beautiful boy keeps what will always be mine in any case. Checking against light that the pictures will remain intact, I carefully tear off the corner with the signature, and I push it deep into my pocket.

“That’s fine,” I say, and I sign my name under the caricature of me. “What’s your name?”

“Nicholas.”

 _To Nicholas_ , I write under his portrait, and I present the paper to him.

He places quietly a handful of coins in my lap. Ten Knuts.

As response I offer only thanks, in his way, “Ta.” If he can hear any emotion in it, it might be amusement.

It amuses me that he can’t imagine how I feel, having not been this wealthy since last week.

When I’m pocketing the coins and the pencil, he whispers to me, “This is really worth a lot more. You’re so good you could sell your drawings to Muggle tourists.”

Now finally I’m feasting my eyes on my dear Animagi, watching from this corner table as they jostle each other playfully at the bar. And I’ve stayed behind only because, the first to arrive in the Leaky Cauldron, I’ve already bought myself a butterbeer – paid for it, too, with earnings from my work, my art. I’ve also got a good excuse for not choosing an even more expensive drink: I mustn’t have much alcohol this close to the full moon.

I can’t help smiling. No fear for tears, after all, since yesterday I could pay for a meal, too, at this table – after exchanging the Muggle money at Gringotts. Ah, a big portion of fish and chips. And when James now turned back to ask if I’d like something to eat, I was able to tell him honestly that no thank you, I’d just had my breakfast.

Sirius didn’t ask anything. But after they all greeted me, shaking hands, as I’d stood up, offered mine, acting on my yearning for human touch on my skin – the need that is at least as compelling as the craving for plentiful supplies of food at this phase of the month… he came closer, not nearly as close as my heart wished, but… I can still feel the grip of his hand on my shoulder. And the stare of his luminous, tantalising eyes is still piercing me, revealing a desire that’s not only mine.

Yes, he’s coming back now, keeping his gaze at me. And as he’s sat down on my left, this hand of mine sneaks to his thigh as if seeking the lines for a true portrait.

Now Peter’s on my right, James opposite to me, in the middle of describing the Auror training camp.

Sirius interrupts him. “Now let’s hear first what our Moony’s been up to, besides honouring Merlin College’s noble beastiologists with his presence.”

“Just something like,” I start, looking for a way to turn my ordeals and my new pride into a fun anecdote, “having an art exhibition.”

“You’re kidding!” James laughs.

But Peter’s inquiring, “Where? Now maybe that’s what you should do, just be an artist and drop the studies.”

“On Bayswater Road.”

Sirius looks astonished that I actually had an answer to that. “You’re serious?”

“No, of course not. That’s not me.” I take his pint, lift it to my lips and pretend to notice only then that it isn’t mine. “I just drew some sketches over there, caricatures, and sold a couple of them, too.”

“But how… why?” Sirius frowns.

“You remember how one Sunday we’d been walking Pads in Kensington Gardens, and we came out to a street with all kinds of art hung along the wire fence. That’s Bayswater Road. But perhaps the show is there only on Sundays. Now, Nicholas on my Dark Creature course said that Muggle tourists would like my drawings. We got bored at a lecture and I made his portrait, and...”

“Who’s that?” Sirius sounds irritated. Jealous, I hope. 

“A handsome redhead. I’d show you, but he wanted to keep the picture. So anyway, I did it all rather spontaneously. The next day, yesterday. I came to Bayswater Road near Lancaster Gate, and there was no exhibition. I had no art with me either. But there were some people handing out these flyers. I returned to the Peter Pan statue – that’s where I’d come through – and slipped to the wizard world for a while, so I could use my wand and vanish the print on one side of the flyers. And went back and started sketching.”

“Wicked.” Peter’s entertained by my narration, at least. “What did you draw?”

“I’d also got a Muggle newspaper, and there was a photo of John Tyndall. You know: the National Front leader. I made a caricature of him.”

“Who’d want to have a portrait of that bugger?” That’s James. 

“The punk who’d given me the flyers. Because it was a caricature, mind. He was alarmed to see there was fault in some of the flyers, and I completed another one for him, too: with his own portrait.”

“Now, what punk…” Sirius manages to hide the jealousy. “What flyers are you talking about? You’ve got any left?”

I dig out a sheaf of tiny pieces of paper and undo the Shrinking Charm. They all stare at the side with brown and orange print intact, and I actually look at it more closely only now, having earlier registered just the word _CARNIVAL_ with its several exclamation marks.

And Sirius exclaims, “Carnival against the Nazis! That’s just the concert Andromeda told me about!”

“Rally...” James reads.

And Peter adds, “March to...”

“Yes, and they’ll have bands at Victoria Park. Look here!” Sirius points at the top of the page, where it reads as a headline: _Tom Robinson Band_.

Tired and a bit embarrassed after my revelations, I’ve felt relieved and happy that I’ve happened to guide them to changing the topic to something that doesn’t much concern me but makes them animated. Now I’m suddenly alert, too.

“That’s your favourite,” I say to Sirius, smiling. “The songs you always holler, trying to sing.”

He rewards me with a line from the single, almost shouted in my ear, “Gonna keep on driving home on the road I'm on!”

“We’ll all go there,” James decides. “Trafalgar Square at 11 am on the 30th… It’s next Sunday, luckily not this, so we’ll all be in our best health. And Lily’s scheduled back from Afghanistan just in time.”

“Yes!” Sirius claps me on the back. “Now let’s go to our flat, so we can listen to the single and the three songs Andromeda recorded from the radio...”

“As if we hadn’t heard them.” Peter smiles, though. 

“And to have the feast we promised,” James reminds us. “Pads and I’ve bought loads of food.”

And Peter adds with a chuckle, “So we can all eat like beasts today.”

James pretends to have a novel idea. “But perhaps we’ll try to cook some of it. Practise, so we’ll impress the girls with a better feast after the rally.”

“Then we’ll celebrate all through the night. It’ll be a night to remember!” Sirius’s endearing enthusiasm would deserve several exclamation marks, like those on the flyer.

But when he’s about to continue, his breath hitches. “That one also for our Moony to remember.” And he squeezes my hand under the table.

“You know, there used to be mines here, and before that birches, lower on the slope.” Sirius keeps talking as I’m leaning against him, and he’s leaning against the stone wall of this ruin, near which we’ve Apparated almost every month for a year now.

I know. He first chose Birks Fell because of the name, and flew all the way to North Yorkshire – to fall in love with the landscape: the summit, the slopes, the tarn with its silvery water and stony beach, the wide wildness perfect for us. I’ve only heard about these wonders, as well as about our furry antics. The wolf, of course, has lived through it again and again with senses keen, but it’s all lost to my mind. I get to see the area from above, though, after sunrise when sitting behind James, the best flyer, on his broomstick, being taken to the nearest inn for recovery. Now he and Peter have already changed; Prongs and Wormtail are nearby, ready as animals to help the wolf stay calm. And Pads will be with me during my change.

“Downy birches, too. Like those next to my balcony. The furry kind.” He must be distressed to talk in this way. 

Despite the shelter of the wall and his body’s warmth, I’m cold, and he’s sure to sense it: my shivering besides the convulsions. The weather’s still not turned mild, and yesterday it seemed to turn ever chillier while I stayed kneeling on the pavement, drawing, waiting for more customers after the boy with safety-pins and a razor blade on his collar. And now soon it’s time to take off my clothes.

He’s wrapped his cloak around me, too. Now he shifts, makes me move – but it’s just to open the zipper of his leather jacket, and he draws me even closer to rest in his lap, my head under his collarbone. 

I can sense the vibration in his breast as he starts humming.

“I just want to tell you about Martin,” he tries to sing. “Sing with me, so it sounds better!”

Haltingly, we sing it together: the most… beautiful song on the tape Andromeda recorded for him.

Then he attempts the Pink Floyd song Lily taught us. “If you didn’t care...”

But I faiI to join him. I clutch his hand and try to hold back my tears. He must be able to feel the suppressed sob.

“It’s all right…” There’s the hitch in his breath again. “I mean it’s all right to cry. You don’t have to stop yourself... It’s all right if you show me just how bad it is. Now that I – we – have learned to change and be with you, do our best to help… Now it doesn’t hurt me like before.”

But my body’s not aching too badly yet. The convulsions are gradually strengthening and becoming more frequent, also approaching my skin. His closeness, though, relaxes my muscles. The memory of an even more intimate touch remains, carrying a promise to save me: to still reunite my mind and the human body when then wolf withdraws.

Rubbing my cheek against the fine wool of his jumper, I finally figure out what I can say between the inhuman pain and my trivial worries. “Baa!”

His chest heaves in an almost hysterical chortle as he responds, “Baa-aa!”

Ever since our last school holidays, when he visited the Cotswolds to witness his wolf as a shepherd, and my father’s sheep got to witness our intimacy, this has been our mating call. This afternoon, too, we first signaled like this to each other, then after the main courses – James’s surprising achievements – volunteered to prepare the puddings together, and sealed the kitchen door behind us, stealing a moment for a hurried shag.

We didn’t have the time for getting undressed then. And no, I didn’t mean that he should undress me now.

“No!” I stop his hand as he starts by pulling at the zipper of my corduroy jacket, then pushing all the layers of clothing aside from my shoulder. Can he be so cruel or thoughtless as to expose the bite scar now?

But he caresses the shoulder first with his fingers, then even shifts so that he’s able to do it with his lips.

Shaking, I close my eyes. He means well. But… “No, I didn’t mean...” To me “baa” means also “I love you.” I’m not sure he knows that.

“I know. I can’t shag you now. Must wait at least until we’re both canines. But it’s time to take off your clothes, and I’m helping you.” 

I need his help. The final, outer change is so close now that I can no longer control the movements of this unstable body, weaker than ever, I’m afraid, due to the weeks of malnutrition.

And I realise he’ll soon see it. He’s removed my jacket, he’s now pulling the sweatshirt cautiously over my head, and too soon my chest and arms will be bare.

Now almost fully naked, unable to move, I’m staring at his beautiful face, clinging to the hope of strength my love can give me.

But he’s staring at my thin arms, perhaps at my ribs. “You really are like a fairy,” he says softly.

“Don’t look at me!” I’ve told him before not to watch me when I’m changing. But now this: I can’t bear him looking at my human body.

He changes – effortlessly, painlessly, as he’s let me know as if in a confession, apology. The huge black dog presses close to me so as to welcome my imminent change. But the dog’s eyes staring at me with compassion and concern are light grey, Sirius’s.

“We’re almost at the George. Better land before any Muggles notice us.” James’s voice close to my ear jerks me awake.

I must have been unconscious ever since the change back. James has placed me in front of him on the broomstick and held me with one arm, maybe at times with both while manoeuvring his broom masterfully. Now I can feel he’s hovering on a spot: there’s no cold air rushing against us, just a breeze on my left, bringing the scents of familiar posh perfume and of dog.

Sirius’s snort sounds right beside me, too. “Hubberholme’s dead this early on Sunday mornings. And look, after Apparating, Peter’s walked all the way to the door, and he’s waving like mad...”

“Are you sure he doesn’t mean we should land further away from the inn? Maybe there are people by the church opposite.”

“No. I mean yes, I’m sure. The Sunday service is only at eleven.”

“How do you know such a thing?”

Sirius doesn’t reply. I can imagine him shrugging, struggle to open my eyes – and suddenly feel the brush of his finger on my temple. “Let’s go, get our Moony to bed quick.” 

“Family room, great!” I’m not sure about the tone in James’s comment.

Having just fallen on the luxurious double bed, I’m immediately almost asleep. The strain of walking in – as I insisted on doing, so as not to cause more trouble for them or more suspicion – has almost undone me.

“It is great – perfect,” Peter defends his choice. “Ground floor, too: easier for Moony. And I convinced them one room is enough, because only two of us will stay the night.”

In my stupor I still remember that also paying for the stay at the inn has been allotted to Peter.

“I’ll just take a nap in a cot,” he continues. “If one of you goes down, come and tell me when there’s a candle lit on the bar.”

“Fine, the room’s fine.” James laughs. “We’re a fine family. I’ll stay for a rest first, too, in the other cot. You’ll sleep like a log and not hear if Moony needs something.”

I’m waiting to hear Sirius’s voice. Finally, he speaks, further away than I wished. “I’m going to watch for that sign of theirs for when the pub’s serving.” He’s opening the door. He’s not coming to touch me, not when I’m on a bed with the others in the room. “Then I’ll order some food up. Perhaps while waiting I’ll see that church. See if there’s any stained-glass window. You know I’ve liked those since I saw the one in Godric’s Hollow.” And he adds in a soft voice, “The shepherd.”

My head’s resting on a soft pillow, and there’s a thick quilt drawn up over my shoulder. It’s all so quiet that… yes, after turning my face up, with my eyes still closed, as I listen to the silence with both ears, I can distinguish a low murmur: the burbling voice of the river whispering to me. That makes me smile. And now out there sounds what may have woken me: a melodious, fluted warble, which pierces my mind like a thin, dancing stream of purple light. Opening my eyes, I’m not surprised to see the colours painted across the window – and their glow reflected on the luminous eyes.

Sirius is lying on his side, with an elbow on my pillow, a hand supporting his head so that it’s almost above mine.

“Blackbird. And the river Wharfe,” he confirms, having evidently watched the smiles emerging on my face. “And just so you know, this is sunset. This time there was no way to share the sunrise brilliance with you. You were all knocked out, and after getting to bed you’ve been snoring all day. Prongs and Wormtail could no longer wait in this watering hole: they were getting almost too drunk to Apparate.”

“And you?” I can smell the spirits in his breath.

“I’ll sober up by the morning, when you’ll be in the state to Apparate. Now I’m too pissed for a shag. We must eat first.”

But he takes me unawares by shoving his hands in my armpits. The ticklish sensation is so strong that I can hardly catch my breath, and we end up both giggling. He must have caressed my skin during my sleep, as I’ve felt relaxed, secure in my regained dimensions, but the first conscious moment of receiving this gift of touch from him – with the exception of that brush of finger on my temple – is overwhelming. And while still teasing me with his fingers, he kisses me full on the mouth.

Finally he’s managed to drag me to a half-sitting position. Now he levitates a tray to hover just above my lap and starts serving me another hearty meal. I don’t look up at him, and I don’t talk to him, but I enjoy the touch of his arm on mine. I’m at least as ravenous as before the moonrise yesterday… Yes, it’s well more than twenty-four hours since I ate, and this time there’s just the moon to blame. The moon’s disc, still almost completely round, must be visible in the horizon over Wharfedale. But I’m safe, and I focus on the steak and kidney pie, his hand moving the plates, and on mashed potatoes, his long, graceful fingers, and on sliced carrots, his fingers gripping a fork, and finally on bread and butter pudding with custard, and his hand spooning the food – to my mouth, too.

Going to the loo, I can’t help thinking about how they must have dressed me after the moonset. Fortunately they haven’t taken off all my clothes when tucking me in. I’m wearing trousers and also my sweatshirt, which is worn embarrassingly thin at the elbows, but all the same somehow conceals the gauntness of my body.

Dressed like this, I slip back under the covers, where he’s waiting, wearing only pants. Face to face, very close, we share a smile.

Now I won’t let any worries take this bliss away. When he starts to open his mouth, I attack it with my lips and tongue, even teeth so ferociously that there’s no doubt I’m forbidding all talk.

A shade more tenderly, my mouth and fingers trace the lines of his unique masterpiece of a body, starting with his eyebrows, lingering on his chin, the muscles of his chest and arms, the sensitive curve above his hip, and growing fierce and impatient when approaching his crotch. And his hands wander under my shirt, before opening and hitching down my trousers, confirming that despite any flaws... no, under his touch there are none – there’s a renewed treasure in this body, too, for me and for him.

This time we do it gently, just let our hard and hot, leaking, pulsing cocks rub together, press them tight between our bellies. He knows I need the contact on my skin, and that inside I still feel too unstable for allowing him to penetrate, and we value reciprocity. He kisses the tip of my cock, lets me push in, to feel his throat. But I come only together with him when he’s pumping my cock, and his is exploding deep in my mouth.

After using his wand for a Cleaning Charm, he carefully pulls the hem of my shirt down and closes my trousers, looking only at my face, with a smile in which I see happiness and satisfaction – until he speaks. “This time it was worse...”

“What! You complain?”

“I mean the transformation – the change back especially. How exhausted it left you.”

“I... was just tired. No need to talk about it.” I pull the quilt higher, almost to my chin.

“But I wonder why...”

I close his mouth with one more kiss, then turn my back to him. “Tired. Let’s sleep.”

But I shift closer to him, to press my back against his abdomen, my buttocks against his thighs, and add, “My Pads, good night!”

He lays the warm weight of his arm across my waist, under the quilt. “I’m just wondering if… I’ve planned to Apparate home early, in the morning, because James and I need to do some … well, actual homework before the lessons, but...”

“That’s fine. I could Apparate with you to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and then go straight to Piccadilly Circus. Where that punk advised me to sell drawings.”

His muscles tense for a moment. After a brief silence he says, “Good night, my artist!”

The stone is still cold, as the sun hasn’t reached the steps surrounding the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain. I place the newspaper on the step for insulation and sit back down. Instead of using a photograph of a politician for a caricature… I look up at the statue. In the long-awaited light of spring its butterfly wings are gleaming against the almost cloudless sky.

Why not: a tourist may well want a charcoal picture of the most famous work of sculpture in London. Eros, isn’t it?

Sketching the outlines of the sensual figure of a naked youth, my left hand reminisces the beloved body it’s caressed too long ago – albeit just this morning. This sweet longing warms me, and I smile to myself, not caring if any potential customer notices me yet. I add shading carefully, caressing the muscles, the locks of his hair...

“Why Eros?” The question startles me. There’s a middle-aged man standing close by, just a couple of steps below, and he’s staring up, not at me, though.

“Why, it’s perfect for us.” A short, plump blonde arrives, a bit breathless, and slips under his arm. “My first real honeymoon...”

I can’t resist eyeing the couple, planning how to portray them: perhaps in a romantic view, in the way they must see each other.

The man leafs his guidebook, then points at the text. “Look. The statue was erected to commemorate the philanthropic works of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It’s not Eros, but Anteros: the Greek god of love returned, or counter-love. Whatever that is… Never heard of any Anteros.”

I look back at the lines of charcoal: at my Sirius, whom I’ve loved so long, in more ways than I can count – at whatever is the way he loves me back.

“It is also called ‘the Angel of Christian Charity’,” the man reads in his book.

Startled again, I glance up just when he lowers the book and catches sight of me and my drawing.

“Excuse me,” he says to me, closing the book and wrapping his both arms around his wife, holding her to face me in front of him, perhaps so as to give her some of the attention she’s been expecting, while he’s still preoccupied by the touristic sight. “Are you depicting here the god of erotic love, or the angel of charity?”

“Whatever...” I start haltingly. “It depends on what a customer wants to commemorate.”

“You’re selling your art?”

“Yes. And you can pay whatever suits you.” I want to focus on him, and not only because of the prospect of money. I need to talk so as to push aside any notions of love and charity related to... a stained-glass window – disturbing memories, as if garish ones. “Since I give my work in return, your coin won’t be pure charity, but by buying from me, you also honour the memory of the philanthropic earl. Besides, I can draw a double portrait of you and your lovely wife – here under a god of love.”

The wife replies, “Yes, please!” She tilts her head back, attempting an eye-contact with her husband, perhaps also addressing him rather than me.

“Yes!” I can’t resist responding before him. “Just like that: hold that pose – a few seconds are enough. Thank you.”

I’ve placed the statue on the upper third of the flyer, planning to add details of the fountain. There’s enough space for a half-length portrait, including their arms. With the help of my visual memory, I quickly sketch the couple as I’ve caught them at the moment when she seeks a further connection while he’s holding her tight. For a while I keep glancing at them, then adding details like his sideburns, the dimple on her chin. But I want to keep it light, clean – to apply shading sparingly, and to leave out most wrinkles. And I’ve depicted him as looking at her face, too…

Although when I turn the picture as well as my gaze towards them, he’s still reading the guidebook. “Can you imagine: it cost the artist 7000 pounds to make the fountain, and he was paid only 3000. Later he wanted to melt the whole thing and sell the bronze, and spend the money on building shelters for the homeless.”

Charity for the homeless… I can no longer ignore the memory. It’s too compelling since yesterday, as I know now that Sirius remembers the stained-glass window in Godric’s Hollow and undoubtedly also what he found, having entered, passing the gentle shepherd and his fellows in jewel-bright robes. He was homeless, having run away, and I was still one of the fortunate, helping James’s mother at the Christmas feast for the part-human poor. He was coming to his new home, to his true brother’s. But he must suspect I need charity now. And perhaps his counter-love is only charity.

I lift the strap of the satchel over my head, to the other shoulder, and continue down a narrowing cobblestone alley. I’ve used this crummy vinyl bag, once a trendy Muggle accessory, only occasionally after carrying home the first inordinate load of college library books, which the librarian forbid me to shrink small enough to fit in my pockets. Back then a friendly fellow student offered the old satchel for me to keep, too, as he had just bought a new briefcase.

Tonight I’ve filled the satchel with shrunken books and study notes; drawings and paintings; watercolour palettes and brushes; the photo album with two puppies in the cover; the few clothes I’m not wearing; the lute my father insisted on giving to me although I’d hardly learnt to play it, as well as the blanket he’s woven of his own sheep’s wool. Listing what might seem meagre possessions makes me, surprisingly, feel rich and secure. And there are also the bread crumbs at the bottom of the bag: my earnings, transfigured after the exchange at Gringotts. 

The day surprised me with its mild, sunny weather and also with the amount of paid work I got to do with my charcoal pencil. When receiving a banknote from the satisfied, even overjoyed little wife, I was jerked out from my silly memories and doubts by the sight of several tourists, perhaps locals, too, who had gathered to watch my drawing. Once there had been proof of my skill, it was not hard to get the next model and customer. Some wanted caricatures, some serious portraits; some paid decently, albeit no one better than the lady on honeymoon.

In any case I knew that the money would not be enough to satisfy Miss Gallywig. I wasn’t so stupid as to mention, let alone show her how much I had, and perhaps it was clever, as the last resort, to ask whether she could accept payment for one day at a time. As response I got the colourfully-worded information on where rubble like me can stay for one night at a time.

Unless she lied, the doss house for part-humans is somewhere in this labyrinth of cobblestone behind the Knockturn Alley, just where the paving ends before an inconspicuous entrance – the mere existence of which is denied as well as the existence of the area itself where no wizard would enter. I, too, want to reject the knowledge shared with me by some revered non-human members of my mother’s theatre: the notion of still another world where I can’t possibly… can’t even want to belong.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have hurried to leave West End – where people lingered enjoying the first warm spring day – so as to make it to Gringotts before closing time. At least I don’t regret the decision to squander some of my money immediately at a Muggle restaurant. The Indian eatery wasn’t terribly expensive, and the chicken tikka masala seems to still help ward off the chill. 

The clear sky is paling, the alley already darkening. And as the afternoon’s heat has escaped, a mist is forming – perhaps for the same reason as over the river at home in the Cotswolds when the air is crisp on cloudless evenings and mornings. Here the warm water to evaporate is in the puddles on broken pavement and in the reeking gutters, filled by the weeks of rain, too. Finding it ever harder to see ahead of me, I step cautiously so as to avoid getting my shoes wet.

Now there’s no more cobblestone. Maybe I’ve crossed the invisible border. I turn around and look back, checking if I’ve missed any sign of an establishment that could be the doss house. There are few signs of any kind, and the closest one, almost above my head is rusty scissors: barber’s.

I’m just about to try and push the door when it opens to reveal a crown of a head bent to thrust out before a bulky figure. Straightening up, he looks down at me: an unmistakable part-giant. He’s dressed in tattered robes, but his beard and moustache are neat and reveal a friendly smile; he’s evidently a satisfied customer.

“Oh, sorry, the barber can’t give no more haircuts tonight. Shared too many cups of mead, and he’s snoring.” Now there’s an expression of pity around his bloodshot eyes.

It’s true that my hair’s grown rather shaggy, with wispy ends reaching over my ears and until the collar. But perhaps he feels more pity for my lack of beard. Oh yes, I should have remembered the razor when listing my valuable belongings: I hate facial hair on myself, for some furry reason.

“I actually only wanted directions to the doss house.”

“Is that right? I’m just on my way there, so you come along!” He takes a couple of long strides towards where I originally came from, then turns to the left and starts along such a narrow alley that his both shoulders brush the walls. “Never stayed in this one before?”

When, struggling to keep up, I fail to reply, he glances back and stops.

“Listen...” I hesitate. “Do you think I’ll get in?”

“Why, sure! Been a fine day, folks don’t turn in early, some forget the night’s still cold.” He walks on again, now a bit more slowly.

“But it’s only for part-humans.”

“Don’t worry,” he replies without glancing back at me. “You look human enough.”

“They won’t check? I mean… what other breed..?” I’m afraid I can’t possibly pass as a fairy in this sense. Not even as a part-veela, now that after the day in the sun I’m hardly pale enough – and never beautiful enough.

He stops and turns, looks at me closely, but shakes his head. “No. We don’t ask these things. A creature tells others about himself when he wants to – if he knows what he is. There’s one exception, of course.”

I realise he’s examined my face and now turned his eyes to my hands. I’ve pulled the sleeves of the sweatshirt down from under the cuffs of the jacket. Adjusting the strap of the satchel across my chest, I lift both hands so that they’re better exposed and he can see I’m not hiding fresh wounds or bandages. I must trust that this is all anyone would look for so soon after the full moon, and that my old scars will go unnoticed.

“As for… If we suspect someone’s only human…” He screws up his face again in that expression of compassion. “No wizard comes here except in a pitiable state. If he’s still got the five Knuts, we ask no questions.”

Keeping my eyes closed, I turn over on the narrow mat and pull my blanket up to my ears and nose. With the satchel as pillow, I’m not lying much more uncomfortably than on Miss Gallywig’s mattress. And it’s not cold in here. Since the low-ceilinged room is full of creatures, almost thirty of us, our body heat and our breathing guarantee warmth and stifling air, which is saturated with various beastly and eerie odours.

Any privacy I can possibly reach and adhere to might derive from the pretence that I’m not awake. I wish I could convince myself, too, that I’m able to fall asleep. Still more fascinated than annoyed, I listen to the voices and other sounds, trying to draw a group portrait of this motley crowd on the canvas of my mind.

A few of the creatures I’ve seen, and I attempt to match their images to what I’m hearing. My compassionate-eyed guide, of course, who turned out to be working for the half-goblin who owns the building. I didn’t need to talk to the latter at all, only gave him five Knuts, on which – as well as on my blanket – I had broken the charms just outside the entrance, no longer fearing to let my guide see my wand, as that could only confirm the idea that my hesitation had derived from nothing but full humanity. Now the half-giant – with his friendly smile, I can imagine, lighting up the hairy face – is sharing an anecdote about the barber, calling him Moles. Indeed, they don’t refer to anyone’s breed.

But I catch myself worrying again. Perhaps the owner, too, now knows about my wand. No, it won’t matter. I listen to the lisping voice which, in a serious tone, is going through statistics of how many creatures have stayed in each month of this prolonged winter: how many females, how many males, how many of other genders… Whatever those can be. Still no mention of breeds. Anyway, this must be the owner: the gloomy flat face, and the big hands which held my coins clumsily.

“Time to seal the door,” the owner says.

On the verge of a dream, breath catches in my throat while I want to shout: no! No, I’m not back at a full-moon sunset before I got my Pads; there’s no one locking up the wolf. I’m free and actually almost too human; I don’t even want to leave this doss house before morning, until when I’m just protected by whatever force of goblin magic the owner possesses.

Are he and my guide now mentioning breeds, talking about goblins? No, goblets. They’re going upstairs to drink.

And suddenly there’s such cacophony that my eyes almost open against my will. All right: an abundance of enchanting sounds for the basis of my mental fresco. Squeaking, giggling, munching, crunching, sucking, coughing, grunting… I can picture pale and ruddy faces, bald heads and matted hair, grins and horns, whiskers and tails even. But I’m surprised by my reluctance to define these fellow creatures.

Now I’m jerked awake when someone’s… yes, pulling at my blanket.

“Give me… Let me!” a high voice whines close to my ear. “I’m cold, you’re not.” 

“The blanket’s mine,” I mumble.

“So what?”

I turn my head; I’ve failed to pretend I’m asleep. Face to face with me there’s someone with huge round eyes. For a moment I’m sure I know him, and I just wonder why Gumby’s left my fathers’ house to find me: to take the blanket away from this disreputable place?

He stands straight, small like a child, on thin bare legs, wearing only a skimpy, ragged tunic, in size not much different from a house-elf’s pillowcase… No, he… or she, or something else, can’t be a full elf. The halo of curls around the pale face is white, even self-luminous, and now the head is bowed so low that it must be a ceremonial greeting… yes, a faun’s greeting: one open palm slanted down towards me, the other hand lifted to touch a small pair of horns.

“Come’ere!” The growl sounds from the mat beside mine. Someone big and hairy lifts the torn edge of his cloak and grumbles, “That fellow’s too human.”

“Right.” The pale creature turns away and slips under my neighbour’s cloak. “I noticed.”

I decided I wouldn’t come back here. But in the end, it was too tempting to simply – now that I knew the exact location – Apparate under the sign _Brute House – Beds – 5 Knuts_ : to get to lie down in a warm and dry place. Now, though, when clinging to my possessions, with eyes closed and somehow guiltily, I’d rather paint mental pictures of the passed day, perhaps watercolours in the rain.

Now that reminds me of Year of the Cat – just a moment last year when Lily and I had rushed to her flat after finding an older single, the very first one by the genius artist: the Elf. We listened to the two fascinating songs on her record player, and then she made me envy the ease with which she learned the melodies on her guitar.

I wish I weren’t too scared to draw attention to myself, so that I could take out the lute. Perhaps I could now succeed… with the magic of the elves…

I must have been dozing off. As if they agreed to share with me – when I myself proved too human to share!

In any case I’ve got the songs treasured in my mind – Al Stewart’s voice and hers to enchant me and rock me to sleep: My fumbling fingers found the chords/ My trembling lips fought for the words/ I stopped to ask the stranger how/ He softly said, no questions now/ But sing, sing to me your song... 

And now here our lovely Lily comes out of the sun in a silk dress and perhaps… running like a watercolor in the rain, I can follow her to… Tillya Tebe excavations in Afghanistan, so as to hoard a treasure of gold, or to the hidden door by the blue-tiled walls near the market stalls…

Or under Waterloo Bridge, escaping from another shower of cold rain. Perhaps she’s going over there to check out what books that man is selling, while I place the newspaper on the ground and kneel on it so as to take the palette and brushes and another flyer out of the satchel, which serves as an easel, too. I pat the cracked vinyl affectionately: it’s so practical to carry everything with me.

Where is she now? I scan the landscape of St James’s Park and can’t see the fiery glow of her hair, but perhaps she’s wearing a scarf and hiding among the black mulberry trees. They’ve appeared in charcoal lines, and now, as the morning rain’s gone and left just this paper cup full of water, I can add my other medium and paint the first fragile green of spring.

Now I’ve got a cup full of coffee, and I’m watching through the glass as long as all that glows bright is the red – and not of her head but of the buses. Yes, black lines and shading, and only this colour of London added with my brush. That’ll help me make a bit more after I’ve now eaten what I earned at the park. 

_RENT or…_ The letters are formed on the thick concrete column with spray paint: _REVOLT_. The painter shakes the aerosol can again and turns to me with a smirk. The rumble of skateboards echoes from the low ceiling, approaches, passes in front of the painter, who’s aiming at me, and I escape to the rain from this undercroft of a brutalist building.

No, I can’t move. With my scars and ribs exposed, I’m lying under a blanket – which is hovering closer to the ceiling. The echo is now of rumbling stomachs near mine, and I’m lying, trying to hide my blessings and my pain. 

Something tickles the skin of my throat… wisps of his hair. Don’t look at me, I want to say, or rather just so as to kiss him, I part my lips. And now I can’t breathe, and the mouth whispering into mine is not his.

In despair I force my lids open. The eyes locked on mine are dark, painted black around. A woman’s, perhaps. She bites my lips, finally lets go, and I draw in the stinky, hot air.

She laughs and shakes her head, so that the wisps of her green-tinted hair hanging over my face brush my cheeks. “Did I manage to bring you nightmares? I know full hags do it better, but I hope I was able to serve.”

Lifting her weight only a bit, with her knees at my sides on the mat, she stays sitting on my chest. But the blanket is under her, and I’m also wearing my sweatshirt. Partially relieved, I nod, frowning, hoping that this reply will make her leave me alone, satisfied that she’s completed her job.

“I think I reached some of it… All right, you don’t want me. You find it too hard to join anyone when you can’t accept what you are.” She spreads her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

I catch a sight of thin fingers, black nails. And she has pressed her palms against my heart, now pushes herself to stand up, and goes away.

How can I sleep here! How can I carry on?

There’s still time to linger here by the library fireplace before my lecture – thank God not the pointless Pogrepins, that’s on Thursday, tomorrow. But I’m restless. I get up to browse the shelves. Hags… This book’s at least not centuries old.

But there seems to be nothing about nightmares or about hags serving in any manner. Just about hags’ beasty diet and beasty… yes, full beastiness, complete with beasty tone of voice and beasty shape of nostrils. And of course, there are no books about part-hags or any interbred creatures.

I return to the desk and start sketching… The bare-legged creature who wanted me to share my blanket. Then the black-eyed, black-nailed lady who wanted to serve me. Not allowed to use water here, I’ll take some to the lecture hall and add at least the green of the hair. I’m doing this just for myself, if not for them. Still, Nicholas might be interested…

No, I didn’t want him to feel compelled to buy these portraits. I suppose it’s just as well that he didn’t come and I’ve been sitting in the top tier on my own all through the lecture, listening to a professor drone on about the need to dispose of dark creatures in a more efficient way… and perhaps spoiling one of these pictures by defiantly adding healthy warm rouge on the face under the horns and the halo of curls. But I miss Nicholas. 

I’m packing the satchel and leaving the hall slowly, wondering what I’ll do first so as to be suitably late for lunch. But no, I’m not starved enough to steal. And besides the Knuts – enough for a couple of nights in the doss house – I’ve still got three tenpence coins left, and that should buy me a big loaf of bread, to last for two days as well.

I take off my robes before crossing the magic border to the grounds of Merton College. Striding down Dead Man’s Walk, I feel… let’s see: relatively good – alive.

Here, as I turn to the right, to Grove Walk, a cold wind attacks me, and I stop to put on the corduroy jacket. And soon to the left, to Merton Street, then right, and ahead there’s Christ Church Picture Gallery.

Nothing brutal about that 1960’s hall, or the art they display. Someday I’ll go in again, to sketch and learn from the Italian Renaissance masters, as last year when I’d managed to save for the entrance fee, I just stared at the Wounded Centaur and the Butcher’s Shop: the lamb and the meat – not ravenously, mind.

But this time I pass and trudge again against the north wind, towards High Street, to the first entrance of the Covered Market, where I’ll get my loaf. And I reach the cover just in time when the rain sets in.

I’m crouching at the entrance, chewing the piece of bread I’ve torn off, and considering a mouthwatering aquarelle depicting some fruits and vegetables that I’ve just seen and can’t erase from my mind, hoping the greengrocer will agree on an exchange… when a long-eared owl flies straight to me, alights on my knee. I lose my balance, of course, and sit on the ground with my heart… No, it’s not fluttering; it’s flapping like the owl’s wings.

But the note is not from Sirius. From Alice. This is lovely, too.

_Welcome to a dinner party! Please come any time this afternoon when you can make it. Amelia’s coming, too, and you could help me prepare. Don’t bring anything. It’s mainly Frank’s Quidditch mates, and I want you, my friend!_

Of course I must bring a gift. Some of the fruits and vegetables. Or I’ll paint some flowers, too.

“The idea was mine!” Amelia caresses my neck possessively, in a way she hardly ever did even in our fourth year. 

I lean back in Lily’s bean bag chair, slide to a more lying position, as if that could help me escape.

Alice pouts and shakes her own blond curls and, kneeling beside me, winds a lock on my temple around a finger. “But I’m better at doing hair.”

“You can comb it after I first cut it.” With an impish grin on her usually earnest face, Amelia tickles me before freeing her hand from between my neck and the bean bag, and takes out her wand.

“Who’s said I need a haircut? Maybe I want long hair.” I can’t help smiling, though.

“Who cares!” Alice shouts.

“We love to trim it anyway,” Amelia adds. “And I’ll do it.” 

They are such wonderful friends. Why didn’t I realise I missed them when I didn’t see them for a couple of months? We’re all genuinely happy to spend these hours together before Frank and his friends come from the Quidditch match. And I’ve managed to have something to offer and share, too. I’m so glad we could use the vegetables I brought, cutting them for a salad, adding some boiled eggs and tinned tuna, and eating it all for lunch. I’d just been going to grab some lunch when the owl arrived, I explained, and I got these instead. The fruits, too, and those served to help create a few incredible hedgehogs: pieces of cheese and various fruits pierced with cocktail sticks and stuck into grapefruits.

Now Amelia’s summoned a pair of scissors, and she pretends to threaten me with them and orders, “Come sit here on the floor.”

“We need a newspaper.” Alice seems reconciled and ever more excited, rushes around in search.

All right, I’ll co-operate. “I’ve got one.” I push myself up and, having fetched from my satchel by the door the paper I just found on my way here, I go to Amelia obediently. “Just don’t cut it too short!”

Alice agrees with me, “Just trim the wispy ends!”

“Don’t worry, you two!”

I don’t. I can always trust her. And Alice’s hands and wand make my hair look healthy and shiny. Fortunately I washed it and a bit more of myself, too, at the college this morning.

After sending away the mirrors she was levitating for me, Alice keeps admiring the result of her efforts. “Now with this...”

“Alice, you know what,” Amelia interrupts her. “Since you did my hair in the morning I’ve felt I should also wear something different.”

Now I realise she’s got a new style. The locks that used to be held in place with kirby grips, like those my mother uses, are now flicked out like wings on the sides of her face.

“Yes,” Alice exclaims, “a swing skirt! There’s one that doesn’t really suit me. You can keep it. Come!” 

I’m still sitting on the floor when they are back from Alice’s room and I get to praise the wide-hemmed, knee-length skirt but also an embroidered waistcoat Alice has put over her blouse.

“These are too small for Frank now.” Alice is holding out something for me to take. “Remus, you must try on a polo neck. It’ll suit your new hair. Take the dark green one! That colour’s perfect for you.”

She’s right – about the colour. Green’s always been my mother’s colour, and it could bring out some warm copper tones in my hair, too. But I hesitate.

“Amelia, we’ll wear the other two, navy blue ones!” Alice sits down beside me and examines the pile of clothing. “These two are fine-gauge knits, will show our curves nicely. Yours is a bit thicker; is that all right for you?”

Almost defeated by her enthusiasm, I nod my answer. Definitely, if I understand what she’s talking about. I suspect that in any case this type of garment will expose too clearly the lack of such muscles which made Frank outgrown for his jumper.

“If I now pull on a turtle-neck jumper, you must fix my hair again.” Amelia, too, still has some reservations.

“Can’t you remember who’s practised Dressing Charms?” Alice flicks her wand, and I hardly catch a sight of one of the blue polo necks flying towards Amelia…

And she’s wearing it, the hem tucked under the waistband of her skirt. “You’ve mastered it! Outstanding!”

The blouse Amelia had on earlier is now balled up in her hands. And her firm and generous bosom is, indeed, on display in a lovelier way than ever.

“Thank you for the grade!” After a small bow, Alice repeats the trick on herself. “And now you, Remus, here you are: your new jumper!”

I have to laugh. The whole fun of dressing up together has perhaps been just that: a trick – planned to present me with something I need. They’re worse than Lily, and I love them. And I love this jumper: soft, and warm, up to my chin, not too tight, and beautiful, no doubt.

Amelia strokes my arm. “Now you look like a Muggle artist… a film director, poet, philosopher, what have you. The artist you are.”

“Thank you!” I say to both of them, and to Alice, “You’re scary.” Holding my old sweatshirt in my lap, I can see how shabby it is, and dirty, too. I must fight the embarrassment. “You could take off anyone’s clothes anytime.”

“No, it works only in exchange. Like everything: give and take. Or sometimes just give.”

I’m back slouching in the bean bag. First exhausted after being introduced to a team of professional sportsmen and looking for topics to discuss with them, until washing down the hedgehog appetisers with Bellini… yes, that’s what Alice called the glamorous Italian cocktail, and the peaches gave it a colour which – together with the alcohol – made me babble about the exquisite hues in the Renaissance master’s palette. Then stuffing myself – together with quite as voracious Quidditch players – with another Italian invention: spaghetti bolognese, washed down with red wine. All recipes and drinks souvenirs from Lily’s previous curse-breaking trip. To the medieval monastery at the river Volturno… where I’m following her now, her silk dress, or Amelia’s, or is it Alice’s swinging skirt, as they pull me to dance…

“It’s almost midnight. We must wake him up.” There’s irritation is Frank’s slurring voice.

And I must keep lying – in both senses, simultaneously. God, I swear I didn’t plan this. But there’s no way to get in the doss house after ten; there’s nowhere to go, and I must stay still, pretend to have passed out. 

“But he’s not in the state to Apparate, and I doubt there’s floo network connection to his place.” That’s Amelia. “I’m taking the floo home, and Remus can sleep in Lily’s room. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. She’d want him to.”

I watch Nicholas cross the quadrangle, where a stray ray of sun flashes on his bright hair, and he turns once more to wave back to me. It still makes me smile how he came straight to sit beside me in the top tier and asked how I was doing. How I replied openly, perhaps excessively, that I was a bit hungover, but otherwise fine, thanks to him. Whispering through half of the inane lecture, I told him about my career as caricaturist and showed him the interbreed portraits, and there was no reason for him to feel I needed Knuts from him. After I had – thinking about the almost whole loaf in my satchel – said that I’d buy myself lunch outside of the college, he walked with me all the way to the porter’s lodge – and I walked with him a short stretch back again, since there was so much we wanted to say about the inadequacy of the creature courses.

With my head a bit hazy but happy, I step out of the porter’s lodge – and there they are! They are here: my Sirius, and James!

I spread my arms and hug the two of them at the same time, almost dropping the satchel. “What are you doing here?”

James laughs. “What do you think: meeting the Warlock of Merlin or the Warden of Merton?”

“Who was that?” Sirius asks.

“Who?” My arms are hanging down now, but my hand fumbles closer to his before I realise I must stop it.

James replies, “You first came to the exit with someone and then turned back, so that we wondered if we should wait at all.”

“Oh, that was Nicholas. You should’ve come to let me introduce...”

Sirius interrupts me. “You’re looking good.” The side of his hand hits me behind my neck, where the neat ends of my hair must be curling over the green wool. “Not exactly punk style.”

“No.” Have I got a lot I could tell them this time? “I’ve met also other… others.” I’m thinking of tourist couples and all those more and less human with whom I’ve shared or haven’t...

“I hear you were at Frank’s party last night.” Now it’s James’s turn to sound jealous.

“Right. Stayed all night, too,” I confess immediately. “Drank too much, it turns out.”

“He was supposed to invite only the Montrose Magpies, no amateurs, not even any Aspiring Auror Birds, although he plays with us now.”

“I got an invitation from Alice. And Amelia was there, too.”

“Staying there because Lily’s away...” James says. “Perhaps she thinks she can still be your girlfriend.”

“No, she...” Perhaps Alice, indeed, thinks Amelia could be, although she never was, not really.

“Listen.” Sirius sounds impatient. “Let’s grab some take-away lunch and go to your flat! I’m not sure if James has so much time, but...”

“Mine?” I adjust the strap on my shoulder, now fumbling for words. “I… I’ve moved out of that room.”

“Great, let’s see your new place then!” James doesn’t miss a beat, but perhaps he’s just missed the point, and more than once.

“I’m kind of… between flats.”

“All right.” James frowns but continues briskly, “We’ll have lunch at a Muggle restaurant nearby. It’s my treat. I think there’s a Chinese…” He turns to stride towards the semicircle in the wall, to enter Dead Man’s Lane. “Come on!”

I put the satchel down and take off my robes.

Sirius stays, keeps staring at me. “You could… if you need a place to stay until...”

Crouching to take out the jacket and to pack the robes, I close my eyes for a moment. “No. What I need… I must go to make the contract with my new landlady. I almost forgot.” That’s true. And I’d be stupid to miss this chance after my compassionate-eyed guide told me about that cheap room yesterday morning. “Now I stay somewhere… like an inn, just for a few nights.”

“I could come with you.” As I stand up, he touches my shoulder, then almost my waist. “Also to visit the place where you stay now.” He lifts a finger to brush my lips – and frowns, perhaps at any mark left by the part-hag’s teeth.

“I don’t think…” I pull the jacket on but leave the zipper open despite the cold wind, hurrying to grab the satchel. “I must first find out where and when to meet this lady. And...”

“You stay together with someone?” Now his voice is cold.

“No,” I say. Not really. I don’t say that, but perhaps he sees that in my face, whereas he can’t see this: only with twenty-nine interbred creatures.

I swing the satchel, hitting him with it. “Baa,” I say, then stumble against him, when lifting the strap over my head, and finally manage to covertly stroke the back of his head. “You can come to my room in May. Promise.”

I hope there’s a promise here we’ll both keep.

I must rely on this goblin lady’s promise – if she gives one – and hope that she trusts me. She eyes me from head to toe while showing me the shared loo, which is… well, less squalid than the one in the doss house. Fortunately I look neater and healthier now than at times during this awfully long month.

So far it doesn’t, in turn, look that great here, but what could I expect? I’m lucky to find such a dismal place that the rent can be low enough for me. And my compassionate guide said also that I’d have privacy.

“Yes, there’s just the one room up here,” the lady says.

She’s arrived on the attic landing with a flash of light while I’m still clambering the rickety staircase. I’m truly reaching heights in my lodging career. It’s just as well that I need to watch my steps, as I almost forgot how impolite it would be to look up at her. I’ve refrained from gazing at her, but I’ve got the impression that she’s a bit older, perhaps a bit less impetuous than Miss Gallywig.

Catching my breath, I examine her peacock-feather diadem, then ask, “And this room is available for moving in immediately?”

“As soon as you pay me the monthly amount I’ve mentioned. If you pay today, you pay again on the 28th of May.”

She’s examining my trousers and shoes. I did my best with the Scouring Charm before entering the building, and whose feet wouldn’t be covered with mud when the rain’s been lashing down almost incessantly since yesterday afternoon when I sneaked a good-bye kiss on Sirius’s ear… Now focus!

“I’m always paid on the first bank day of the month, so I can move in on Monday, the first of May.” 

“You say you’ve got regular income?” She sounds disbelieving.

“Yes, I have.” I wonder if I should have left some mud on so as to hide the frayed edges of the trouser legs.

“Proof?”

Thank God I haven’t drawn or painted on the receipt and sold it. I fumble for it in the satchel but have to resort to Summoning it with my wand.

Accepting the piece of parchment from my hand, she still stares at the wand, instead. “So you are a wizard, an educated one.”

It was not a question, and I say nothing. Indeed, I’ve done the charm voicelessly, which perhaps not any magical human could do with a one-size-fits-all wand and without Hogwarts education. Anyway, the receipt tells her as much as the wand. Not too much more: my full official name – with Jaws – but not my status, not explicitly.

While she’s studying the receipt, I decide to offer excessive information, so that she might not ask something more essential. “As you can see, the tax is a recent development. And that’s the reason why I’m changing lodgings, choosing a place suitable for my budget. I need more than half of that amount for my other expenses, and I want to always pay my rent reliably, with no delays.”

“Good. Since your income is through Gringotts, we can also arrange, when needed, for them to pay my share directly to me.” She pockets the parchment and turns, waves her jewel-encrusted fingers towards the flimsy cardboard door, which would hardly need magic as powerful as hers in order to fly aside.

On the opposite wall of the quite spacey room there’s a wide window to bring in a lot of light on less gloomy days. On the floor there’s nothing except a mattress and… a pool of water under the window. No fireplace, of course, or other means of heating. Still worth it, so much better than a mat from which I’m shooed out at six in the morning, to be let back in – after the day-shift lodgers have left – only between seven and ten in the evening, and that in case there’s still space.

Daylight’s so scarce on Charing Cross Road that I can hardly believe it’s not even half past five. I return my attention to the bookshelves and continue browsing, so meticulously that I can spend at least another hour in here. A couple of books like these, I’ve got in my satchel, actually bought them here, in my favourite second-hand bookstore, on a better day. If I return them to the original size, perhaps I could sell them back for enough to get a cup of tea, to sit somewhere and draw. I’ve more or less given up making any art outside today. Fortunately I’m now so close to the Leaky Cauldron that I won’t get all drenched on my way there – but the rain must be the same on the other side…

A crash makes me turn to the window again. If it’s a bird, this is probably my fault.

Outside the door I almost step on a little owl, a very small individual. It’s one of those which St Mungo’s offers for patients to use… Sirius! Why do I think something’s happened to Sirius? His motorbike…

Of course not. The note is in Peter’s minute handwriting and begins: _My grandaunt..._ Holding the stunned owl in the crook of my arm, I lean against the wall where some dripping from the eaves can revive the bird, and read the whole letter.

_My grandaunt’s just been admitted to hospital to be kept in maybe just overnight but it’s a great relief anyway she’s been more trouble than anything lately hardly managed to cook for me yesterday and I just heard Prongs and Pads are busy and thought you could come and help me there’s some food I don’t know how to cook and some sherry too and if you have any problem going home after like I hear you had after Frank’s party it’s all right you sleep in her room I don’t like to stay in the flat alone. Wormtail_

A great relief, indeed! The loaf’s finished, and I’ve tried not to think that I need to eat again today, and now there’s only tomorrow, Saturday night when I must go to the doss house. I just have to wonder… But it merely amuses me to suspect that James, suspecting something, is behind this: perhaps it’s his fault that Peter’s taken grandaunt Orabella to St Mungo’s in the first place. 

I dig out a pencil stub from a pocket and scribble on the note: _Glad to come. There soon. Moony._

The owl’s now perched on my shoulder. Attaching the note, I tell him, “Please take this to Peter Pettigrew only if you can without hitting anything.” 

I might be there before the owl anyway. It doesn’t matter if he sees how eager I am to visit him. But I really wish I could bring something for him. This time I’m not very hopeful about exchanging a drawing or a painting for a gift. And I doubt he’d appreciate it if I presented him with a piece of art by me.

Still lingering near the door to the bookstore, I look for the shrunken Muggle books in my satchel. I shouldn’t use my wand here, and even if I did and managed to sell a book, I wouldn’t get enough to buy any proper gift – like another book. But what’s this bookmark that’s now – not affected by the charm as I didn’t now it was there between the pages – bigger than the book? A Chocolate Frog card: Claudius Ptolemy, a rare one if I remember correctly. Perhaps Peter never got Ptolemy. This will do.

With the card tucked in the back pocket of my trousers, I stride through the rain to the Leaky Cauldron and Apparate straight away. Not straight to Peter’s door but to the wizard side of Hampstead Heath. It’s beautiful here even in this weather, and I breathe in the fresh air. Peter’s lucky to have a relative who owns a flat here, but I’ve always wondered why he doesn’t prefer living in Oxford with other full-fledged students, since the same grandaunt’s connections offered him the chance to become one. Or… perhaps he can’t afford it either. Now here’s the Victorian redbrick building, and I’m not too early and not too dry.

His face lights up when he opens the door and sees me. But now he’s awkward, and that makes me embarrassed, too. “Take your wet clothes and shoes off!” is the first thing he says.

I stop myself from joking about the need to take off all my clothes. And he looks at the holes in my socks. Anyway, the socks are wet, so I peel them off. I leave the new jumper on, and the trousers, obviously, but I use a hurried Scouring Charm on the legs.

“How’s your grandaunt?” Barefoot, I go to the sitting room after him.

“Very strict, particularly… very particular about her carpets.”

I laugh, sitting down carefully on the edge of an armchair, which has crocheted doilies on the arms and the back. “I’m glad you invited me as soon as you had this chance – when she’s not here. Oh, I’ve got something for you. Just this. I’m afraid I couldn’t resist eating the frog myself. Years ago.” Why do I have to be so honest?

But now I remember he’s always liked just that.

He snatches the card from my fingers, and a blush of pleasure spreads on his round cheeks. “Good old times… when we swapped these. Not this one, mind. We never got Ptolemy.” Now he looks up, a hint of suspicion in his gaze.

“I must have got it a lot later. Found it today: it was marking a page in my paperback novel.”

“And you remembered!”

And of course I add, “I wasn’t completely sure, to be honest. Anyway, where’s the food you want to cook? I hope I can think of something to do with it.”

“No doubt you can. But you’ve got it wrong: I want you to do the cooking! Go ahead, go to the kitchen. I’m just taking this to my collection.”

The polished counters are quite as intimidating as the armchairs. But Peter follows me soon and starts taking out ingredients, first slams down a sack of potatoes.

Unwrapping a butcher’s package, he looks at me hopefully. “Can you make bangers and mash?”

More than ten big sausages. I have to swallow.

“Will you need these?”

There’s milk. And Butter! Now, what did I expect? Of course in a posh flat like this there’s milk and butter.

I must still look shocked, as Peter resorts to pleading, “Will you try!”

“Why, of course. I’m just not used to… All right, these later. You put some water to boil. And I need water for washing the potatoes. Let’s see if I can get any Peeling Charm to work.” I roll up my sleeves.

Now there’s a clatter in the basin, as the potatoes bounce under my charms. Water splashes, and pieces of peel and potato are being flung all over. I step back and drop my wand, as we can’t stop laughing even when the potatoes stop.

All right, too much goes wasted in this way. I must pour the water out and do them one by one. Just in case, I pull off the jumper.

“Now this one looks like yours.”

Peter smirks, watching me roll up the frayed cuffs of the sweatshirt. I’d forgotten that this was how he liked being honest. “This one? Special attire for soiling more than my hands, working for you, my friend!”

“Is the other one from Pads?”

“No.” I pick up my wand. “From Frank, or Alice. Where’s the slop bucket? Oh, of course, Madam Orabella’s residence is equipped with sewerage.” I proceed to pour the soiled water down the drain. 

Both grateful and proud, I look at Peter over our huge portions, put my knife down, and start to eat like him: forking a whole banger, dipping it in the mash and taking as big a bite as I can. Just frying these sausages made me dizzy, the smell of them, and of butter, and when facing the challenge of the gravy, which turned out a bit clumpy but no matter, cutting the onions gave me the chance to shed my tears. While burning a bit perhaps, these didn’t even bang open in the frying pan: really good quality. Like the ones my father makes of mutton. Why haven’t I… Next time when they owl and ask if there’s something I’d like from home, perhaps I shouldn’t be so proud and say that no, thanks, I’m fine here. Maybe I’ve insulted them, and that’s why they haven’t owled for weeks, or they’re just too busy with what they mentioned: the not fully human members of the theatre being harassed by the Death Eaters, or even by the Ministry…

“Take the peas,” Peter says, with food in his mouth, “now there’s space on your plate. I really don’t care for them.”

We’ve opened too tins, and I’m not letting the peas go wasted. I love them, too: bright green and gleaming. Peter’s kept filling our silver goblets with sherry mixed with lemonade, and I’m starting to feel both sleepy and poetic.

“I hear you’re moving.” Having emptied his plate, Peter’s now staring at me with his elbows on the table.

I nod, with my mouth full of lovely, silky peas.

“You must like living alone.”

I nod again.

“I guess I wouldn’t really. The dormitory at Hogwarts was the best thing.”

I’ve finally swallowed the savoury mass of peas and gravy. “I wouldn’t actually mind sharing with one person – if there were a place and a way of living that suited my budget.” Which is, at the moment, five Knuts.

“So you don’t agree to move to Sirius’s flat even when he asks you to.”

“It’s not...” Was that a question? “He doesn’t… He shares with James until James marries, I suppose.”

“And that’s a good choice, because James is as good as engaged. Everyone knows that Lily has… well, at least not promised that she won’t marry him.”

It’s easy enough to laugh with him, perhaps thanks to the sherry, even though I don’t quite get his point.

“Finish your mash! There’s some rice pudding dear Orabella managed to make the other day.” Peter stands up a bit unsurely. “A very good choice. Very wise of the two of you.” 

I wake up on a luxurious bed, just like in the morning before yesterday. So fortunate, blessed with friends! Of course, I haven’t ventured between Madam Orabella’s sheets even after the (heavenly) hot shower Peter and I agreed I needed, but just between an extra sheet and blanket on top of the coverlet. I examine the combination of pink shades in the curtains and furniture and wonder if Bellini would approve, until I notice that Peter’s relatives are examining me from within picture frames and beginning to move between frames, shaking their heads disapprovingly.

Now I remember what woke me up: a crash. And there’s a whistle of a kettle sounding from the kitchen, and I hurry there, pulling my trousers on in the doorway.

Peter’s making tea with trembling hands, and there’s a little owl lying on the counter. “I must go and bring her back. They claim there’s nothing wrong with her. Sorry. I hoped you could stay a bit longer.”

“It’s all right. But thank you, I would have liked to… Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow in Trafalgar Square.”

It’s been a long last day. And it’s not over yet: only perhaps a quarter past seven when I stretch out on the mat, which I secured for myself by coming in early, guessing that the rain would drive a lot of others from the streets.

After still doing the dishes at Peter’s, I’ve hardly worked today, not even walked much. Perhaps I’m just hungover again, and perhaps that’s why I chose to spend my thirty pence on a pint of beer – in lack of better hair of a dog – instead of bread. At least this way the couple of paperbacks helped me get to sit in a pub for most of the day, drawing, not managing to sell anything, though.

This volume’s not in good enough condition for bookstores to accept. Pity, as it’s the middle part of the novel. Oh well, the card perhaps damaged it. And here I’ve marked something with a quill, too. The scene I liked best and read aloud – now I remember – _by the fireside_ , as it’s worded here. Maybe it’s just as well that I get to keep this. This is where I liked to start: _I mean plain ordinary rest…_

 _Lay your head in my lap._ I do hope no one will do that here tonight.

I sit up so as to return the book to the satchel, and come across an item I’ve neglected: the sewing kit my father taught me to use. All right, here’s something to help me pass the time, and also prepare for taking off shoes and maybe more in my friends’ company. Soon I’ll have a better chance for washing some clothes, too. Now in the satchel there’s just an even dirtier and holier pair…

I’ve removed my shoes and socks and started choosing a thread, and only now do I glance around at the creatures whose arrivals I haven’t paid attention to. The mat on my left is occupied by… No, the freckled nose just resembles Nicholas’s, and the curly red mop rather reminds me of one of my mother’s trusted leading dancers.

This creature, too, has hoofs: they’re showing under the hem of his ragged robes, as he’s sitting with arms wrapped around his knees… and now unwrapped as he moves his hands so as to greet me in the way of fauns.

Almost in time I shift my eyes to meet his, then bow my head, too, pressing my right palm on my heart – in the way I learnt at the theatre to respond, as all non-fauns did.

“So you are cultured, after all.” The part-faun grins.

“Just remembered my manners. Late, I know, and I apologise.” I wonder if there was an implied reference to the encounter I had during my first night here.

“Apology accepted. It must all be confusing for you. I hear you have a wand, a real one.”

I’m threading a needle – trying, and I fail, glancing quickly at him. I give a slight nod.

“You don’t want to show it here. Is that why you’re doing that?”

“Yes… I guess otherwise the threading would be easier. But as for mending clothes, magic – at least wizards’ magic – is no good, just an illusion that doesn’t last.”

“This is the last night for me here.”

Mending clothes obviously doesn’t interest him much. This light transition to a new topic reminds me of some plays fabricated by part-humans, and makes me feel trustful.

“For me, too,” I reply, finally successful in my attempt with the needle. “Tomorrow I’m going to this rally with my best friends, then to celebrate at their place until it’s May and I get some money again and move to a private room.”

“Good for you.” He smiles.

I realise I’ve sounded childish in the account of my plans. And I’m glad to feel as if I were allowed to be a child, and not twenty and on my own.

Perhaps to appear as an adult I add, after a while, “More than half of my scholarship money now goes towards the war effort, anyway.”

“Really? Voluntarily?”

“No. It’s a new tax.”

“So now they’re harassing full humans, too. Perhaps you can imagine what they take from us who have no such value.”

“I’ve heard that in the Cotswolds...” I hardly know what I want to say: that I’ve heard about harassment over there, or that perhaps he’d like to go there, to my parents’ protection.

“It’s not safe there either any more. That’s why I’m going away. Some, better ones, I guess, persist. Fight as they’ve been ordered: against what’s perhaps a worse enemy – or rather against creatures ordered by that enemy. Scattered, divided, without a leader, we can hardly fight those ordering us.”

I struggle with the tangled thread and don’t quite manage to follow. I hate darning socks, but now I’m almost finished.

“Tell me about the rally!” After a brief silence, his voice sounds brisk and pleasant, but he must have found me impolite again.

“I’m sorry. I tried to follow and understand. Sometimes I don’t know, either, whom I should fight.”

“Perhaps that rally will help you figure out something.”

“It’s a Muggle demonstration. My… best friend’s excited about it because of the music.” I’m pulling the socks on. 

And as I’m going to put the sewing kit back in the satchel, I dig out the remaining flyer, the one I later realised had both sides intact.

Reaching out to hand the flyer to my companion, I get a crazy idea – perhaps to repent through a sacrifice. “May I mend something for you, too?”

He takes the flyer and lifts his eyes from it, puzzled for the first time during our conversation. “Oh, clothes?”

I take out again the needle that’s still threaded. “I’m not very good, particularly not with socks...”

“I’m not very good at wearing any anyway.” He grins, touching a hoof, then a long rip in his robes which exposes his shin as he’s still sitting with his knees up. “Could you fix this with your thread? You’re quite right: when it comes to clothes, my magic, too, can achieve only fleeting impressions.”

I move to kneel almost shoulder to shoulder with him, so that I won’t be looking towards what he’s got under his robes. It’s not easy to keep the edges of the worn fabric firmly together, and I have to focus fully on the movements of my both hands. He must be studying the flyer, and I wonder if he knows how to read.

Finally finished, I run a finger down the completed, long row of stitches. “They’re not that pretty.”

He puts a hand on mine, pressing mine against his leg. “They are fine – very good. Thank you.”

I don’t move away as he places the flyer on his knees, the side with more text up.

“I don’t know much about Muggle politics,” he says.

“I haven’t actually read this through yet. I like reading aloud. May I? _NF? No! 1978 is the year when...”_

 _“… prevent the growth of the Nazis, and the spread of their racialist poison._ ” I finish, out of breath.

“It’s like opposing the Dark Lord,” he says thoughtfully. “Or more?”

“More. I hope it’s more. In some of those songs...”

“More needs to be done in the magical world, too. Besides defending the rights of Muggle-born wizards. Go with your friends, learn and… ” He hands the flyer to me, and pats his leg. “Remember us.”

When I’ve placed the kit and the flyer into the satchel, he’s already lying down with his eyes closed, still smiling.

“Motorway sun coming up with the morning light!” Sirius hollers in my ear, brightening up the overcast, drizzly noon.

“Believe me or not, I’ve missed even your singing.” I just hope he can hear me, and I wonder if he remembers his wording in the note which I learnt by heart.

Peter pushes to stand between the two of us. “See who’ve missed each other!”

I look where he’s pointing, and there it is, against the mane of the lion a bit further away from us: something I’ve longed for, too, even dreamed about. The flame of her hair! Lily’s standing up between the paws, and James must have rushed over there immediately after spotting her, and scrambled onto the base of the statue. He’s wrapping her in a fierce embrace, kissing her face, and I envy them.

So she’s come as soon as she could, straight from Gringotts after her curse-breaker team’s shared transportation from Afghanistan. And she’s making Sirius’s plan work: he’s simply instructed all members of our Gryffindor gang to come to a lion statue. The only problem left now is that the crowd is getting almost impenetrable especially here in the middle of the square.

“You help with these.” Sirius thrusts one of our two placards to Peter, and his now free hand grips my elbow. “Follow me!”

It turns out we can’t get through unless I walk right behind him, so he’s soon got a grip of my hand instead. I’m just thrilled to hold his, and at the moment I care about nothing beyond staring at it, and at the arse in the tight jeans, and at the broad, leather-clad shoulders, at the damp hair hanging down to them. All right, I must also see the clear black letters on the placard he’s carrying on his shoulder: _WILD BOYS RUNNING/ FIGHTING FOR OUR RIGHTS_ , and one scarlet letter – the _Y_ to make it also _YOUR RIGHTS_.

Suddenly my wild boy lets go of me, and I notice we’ve reached the others. Only now do I glance back to check if Peter has managed to keep up. Almost: I can see _JUST JUSTICE/ FREEDOM FOR THE LIKES OF YOU_ , and then his flushed, not so happy face under it.

But now Alice and Amelia hurry up to me with arms as ready for hugs as there’s space. They, too, are wearing their polo necks under their jackets.

And Frank, behind the girls, waving his hand, asks, “You all right?” and before I get to reply, he continues, “The weather’s getting better. Good for playing... you-know-what. But this is, of course, more important: like rallying against You-Know-Who at the same time.” 

Now Lily’s here, still entangled with James, but holding out a hand, her warm, soft hand to touch my cheek, and fixing her eyes on mine for a moment. She knows that this is all she needs to look at, because I can’t deny her some honesty when I answer her serious question, “How are things?”

“Better. Better today, and tomorrow,” I say. “I have to confess that once I almost passed out; slept one night in your room. And you, how have you and Tillya Tebe been?”

“We’ve been great. But… only one?” She shakes her head. “Sirius! Peter! You’ve got signs, too!”

“Yes, aren’t they banging!” Sirius’s glance at me thrills me, as if he’d touched me again. “Our Moony came in the morning, early, woke us up, so we had time to prepare. Moony drew the letters, I dictated.”

“Very poetically. While Prongs made some breakfast,” I add, again honestly saying what I found important, in addition to my co-operation with Sirius. “Really, he’s improved,” I report on James to his girlfriend.

“There’s a picnic lunch I also prepared.” James indicates his huge backpack. “All in full size, mind. Ready to sustain us in rallying alongside these Mu… these brothers and sisters.”

“That’s him, look!” Sirius punches me on the upper arm.

From the loudspeakers sounds the clear, elating voice. “The message of this carnival...”

Soon Sirius keeps repeating, “Did you hear that? To all bigots everywhere: hands off…”

“Our people!” James completes. “Black, white, together, tonight, and forever!”

“Tom Robinson knows what fan you are, Pads,” Peter shouts. “Mentions you especially!”

And James quips, “Don’t take it so siriusly!”

There it is again: our trite pun! What fun! Why not? This is a carnival, right?

And what’s Lily saying? That she’s got a slogan for us? “Black, Lupin, together, tonight…!” 

The crowd cheers, bellows, waves placards – many of them round, yellow signs with a red arrow and _Anti Nazi League_. Excited, smiling and serious faces, long hair, beards – most of them white faces, but some darker ones, too. Our people… How clear and simple is that?

And soon we start moving, out of the square, along the familiar streets of London where I’m used to trudging on my own. But now I’m part of this festival crowd, taking over the streets, so that they become all different, ours.

Lily takes me by the hand, and in my memory she plays her guitar and we sing: so how can you tell me you’re lonely… No, I can’t: as we keep right on walking, she’s swinging her arm and mine while James wraps his more tightly around her shoulders. Peter’s behind her, arm in arm with both Alice and Amelia. And Sirius is striding in front of me with Frank, who’s taken the other placard.

It is an awfully long march, longer than from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Hampstead Heath – not that we’d have often walked all that way. And now there’s been another long wait, perhaps because of the crossing of a major road. But also music again, and not only inside my head: it’s streaming out of those loudspeakers an old black lady put on the ledge of her window, and the crowd’s exploding into, “Yeah!” and then singing along, “Get up, stand up for your rights!”

The same kind of swaying rhythm now pulses through me again. This is soothing after the shrieks of the girls on the stage first, amazing in their energy – particularly when I was exhausted after the walk, and dizzy from the cheering voices and the shrill sound of plastic whistles. And we didn’t get to settle on the lawn immediately to have our lunch, but had to look for a suitable spot, walking back further away from the stage, arguing whether we’d stay under one of these trees, still almost bare, with leaves delayed by the cold spring. The park’s sodden from the week – or weeks – of rain.

But now it’s all – the puddles, too – bright, gleaming in the sudden wonder of sunlight. Lily’s digging out some Scotch eggs although James hasn’t yet put down the backpack. And after devouring one egg with its sausage wrap and bread-crumb crust, I can’t resist climbing this tree.

“Look!” Peter exclaims. “Sun’s just come out, and now Moony’s rising.” 

Only Frank and Alice are truly surprised. All the others have seen me on my favourite perches at home or at least at Hogwarts. Sirius reaches up to pass me a bottle of firecider. And… yes, he’s climbing up, too! To sit on a different branch, though, a bit above me, so that his motorcycle boots now dangle in front of me, and facing both me and the stage.

The two of us keep sharing the bottle. I can touch his fingers when offering or receiving it, and I feel that closing my lips around the top of the bottle which has just been in his mouth is more intoxicating than the drink.

Amelia tosses me a package of coronation chicken sandwiches. And now James is taking out cheese – Cheddar and Stilton – and cream crackers and finally jam tarts. Between swigs of firecider, I just go on eating, with my eyes mainly on the leather straps and metal rings at the ankles of the boots before me.

“Enough of this feasting!” Sirius hands a half of his tart back to me and starts descending. “We must get closer to the stage.”

With my mouth still full of jam, I jump down for him to catch and steady me.

He leads the way through the heaving crowd. Perhaps with his charm he manages to make girls in particular let us pass.

But now a wave of screaming travels against us, hits us on our faces. Drums and guitars and crude voices explode into clashing sounds, and the sea of punks starts throbbing in the violent new rhythm. Nobody will budge now. 

“Wow, this is what I call banging!” It’s James’s roar in my ear.

“Jump!” Lily shouts. “Or pogo – that’s what it’s called.”

Stuck, we start jumping on the spot, too. 

There’s no use resisting. The brute music breaks my defences and brings its hectic beat right into my bloodstream. And here I find suddenly what I’ve needed. Anger.

Anger, which I was taught to not only control: to suppress – so as to stay as human as possible. When I join in the anger, it can give me the will and the strength to jump and lift my fist high in the rhythm of the song. I hardly need them, though, since we’re all – friends and strangers – one movement, pressed so tight together that there’s no space to lower my arm if I wanted to.

Between songs the anger still pulses in me, but the squealing of the loudspeakers makes it hard to focus. The anger long fed by my pain and now finally acknowledged, given a voice. Anger at whom? Whom to fight against – and for?

Here I go again: pogo! It’s anger at all those who make life so hard for me and… my people. And who are my people – the people to fight for? And whom to fight first?

Now when the music gives way to squealing again, Sirius’s hand grips my wrist, and I’m back fixated at him.

“Come on! We can do better, get next to the stage by Tom’s turn,” he shouts in my ear.

Ecstatic, he leads us on, squirming through the throbbing crowd. “It’s time for the best band now... What?” He’s turning to Lily. “What’s that? Pulled the plug out… to make this one stop?”

But the band continues, and we’re stuck again, swept only in the up and down of joint movement, more or less voluntarily: Lily in joyful abandon and…

James struggling to keep his arms around her, shouting, “What is this band anyway?” and...

Peter uncomfortable, frowning – but suddenly proud to know how to answer, “The Clash, fitting name, right?”

But now I’m listening to the song, my favourite so far. Riot? That’s all I can first make out of the lyrics: I want to riot… All the power’s in the hands/ of people rich enough to buy it/ While we walk the street... 

When the Clash finally leave the stage, I’m overcome by enormous tiredness. Dizzy again, I’m glad that the dense throng even forces me to press against Sirius and Amelia, so that I can rest, leaning on them. I’ve closed my eyes for a moment.

And now I feel the arousal in the tension of his body even before he cheers. 

Tom Robinson. I think I love him, too. There’s something about him that makes me… trust him. 

And the guitarist – a genius! Sexy, too… The way he plays with skill and emotion, amazing!

Pity the sound is not that good. The songs I know are somehow better in my mind, but all right, my memory completes what I can hear now. And what a bliss to sing along, sing together with Sirius in public – and this way we sound better than usual anyway.

And these men are great on the stage. Tom could be an actor at a theatre. How can he have this confidence that allows him to reveal how sensitive he is – taking roles, almost making fun of himself, and still being completely sincere. He must be a bit older, perhaps that’s why he seems more in control than those other angry young men and women. Serious, but less harsh – also caring, and ready to stick his neck out. With his curls and gentle face he could be an angel – the angel of charity? No, of solidarity…

Now Sirius elbows me, and turning to him, I rather read on his lips than hear, “I don’t know this one… Great lyrics!”

They’ve started a new song while I’ve been lost in my reveries. “Picking out people and knocking them down...” Tom’s singing in his harshest voice. And now this must be the refrain – a most obvious sing-along chorus… What?

When the repetition starts, “Sing if you’re glad...” Sirius, too, joins in eagerly, bold as he is, trusting that he’s learning quickly enough. But he figures out the last word of that phrase only while singing it, “… gay!”

With confusion in his eyes and with his mouth still open, he looks away from the stage – to meet first my grin, which must stay on my face while I’m finishing the refrain, “Sing if you’re happy that way!”

During the second verse we both look around. In the crowd I can see many who evidently know the song well: they’re mouthing the complex lyrics. And people who’re hugging their friends. Two girls kissing each other on the lips, and now two… yes, they’ve both got beards: two men snogging.

Everyone around us joins in the chorus, our friends, too – except Peter, who’s frowning. Amelia hugs me, and singing, I smile to her, relaxed and happy.

And now I can distinguish Sirius’s voice right next to my ear.

When I turn back to him, finally, he wraps an arm around me and the other one around James. Bold as I am, too, I quickly touch my lips to the corner of his singing mouth. 

Slouching on his comfortable couch, I’m still not ready to pretend to pass out, although I’ve closed my eyes. I’ve had as much food as I could wish for, and more than enough booze, and I’ve danced in so many ridiculous styles, including pogo, and talked so much about politics of race that my legs and brains and my friends’ eyes and ears can’t stand more. But I haven’t had a moment alone with my Pads.

“Is there something you need, Moony?” He’s sat down beside me, his thigh not quite touching mine.

My eyes open wide to meet his tantalising gaze, to glance at James and Frank, who are sitting on the carpet, drinking beer and talking about Quidditch, and to return to rest in the beauty of his face.

“I guess I need you to put me to sleep. I need to stay here overnight, to be honest.” Perhaps because of the booze I am that now, even with him. “Because of the war effort,” I add in such a slurring voice and after such a break that he may not get it. 

“It’s too late to talk about the war.” He shifts a bit closer and lifts his arm on the back of the couch, so that his thumb strokes the crown of my head. “I want you to stay here… I’d love you to, even if you didn’t need to.”

“You do?” I feel suddenly sober. Still, perhaps I’m not – but hallucinating, instead.

“I do. No, I don’t. Not here on the couch. I want Frank and Alice on the couch.” He looks around, and with serious concentration, takes inventory. “Prongs and Lily in his bed, of course. Wormtail and Amelia have left, haven’t they? I want you in my room, in my bed.”

“With other people here, you do?” I’m hoping for eye contact, but he seems to be focused on my crotch.

“I do. My Moony. I want you – and... anything.” Now he’s locked his eyes on mine. “Talk about the war. Come to your room in May. Remember our rule of reciprocity: I let you in; you let me in. And it’s May now.”

I draw a deep breath. “That’s good. In the morning you can come with me. First to Gringotts, for the war effort.”

I don’t want to talk about it now, or even think about it, but there’s been a hidden fear in me. I can never know if the Ministry’s decrees and percentages change. It’s not only that I’ll finally tell him. I might also need him to help me stand up for my rights.

Perhaps he’s not listened until the end. He’s taken me by the hand without glancing at the boys on the carpet. His kisses he’ll still give me only in privacy, but that’s all right for now.

I let him lead me and offer all this comfort – in his bed, where he’ll take off my socks and more. He loves me as I love him, and it’s not only charity.

**Author's Note:**

> The graffiti which Remus sees in his dream and probably first in the South Bank Undercroft derives from a photograph by Roger Perry, subtitled “Graffiti on Basing Street in Notting Hill Gate, west London, around 1974” and published in his book The Writing on the Wall in 1976.  
> Pigs on the Wing (Parts 1 and 2) is a song in Pink Floyd’s concept album Animals, released in January 1977.  
> The Elf is a song by Al Stewart, released as his first single in 1966, and Year of the Cat his signature single, released in July 1976 but reaching the chart in UK in early 1977.  
> Streets of London is a song by Ralph McTell, released in UK in 1974.  
> Get Up, Stand Up is a song written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, released in 1973.  
> 2-4-6-8 Motorway was the first single by Tom Robinson Band, released in 1977. Martin and (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay are two of the four songs included in the TRB’s EP Rising Free, released in February 1978, and the latter song was banned by BBC but performed at the Carnival Against the Nazis at Victoria Park on the 30th of April 1978.  
> At that Carnival the Clash performed White Riot, which had been released, as their first single, in 1977.  
> For the rally placards Sirius dictated some phrases which possibly influenced – if were not influenced by – You Gotta Survive and Power in the Darkness, two songs on the album which Tom Robinson Band was to release in May 1978.


End file.
